What Gentlemen
by Peeta Melark
Summary: Katniss and her family visit Annie. Little do they know that three of the children will create more trouble than all the hunger games. COMBINED!
1. The Children

**Okay. This is based on the **_**play**_** of The Little Mermaid, but since there's no play category for it, it goes here. Another thing. Pretend Finnick is alive.**

"Where are we going, Mum?" Laurel asked, blue eyes wide.

"To visit a friend, my sweet. Why?' Peeta answered for Katniss. He reached out a hand, and stroked his daughter's black hair away from her face. Laurel turned her head slightly to look out the train window. Another question formed in her mind.

"Do they have children? Are they nice? Why did you leave the baby at home?" she threw at her father.

"Yes. Yes. We left her at home because five days old is not a good traveling age." Peeta said. "And as I can remember, and so can you, it took a lot of pleading to get Katniss to come."

Laurel frowned. She knew her mother had wanted to sleep later, but why did her sister? Her sister was always crying. Day in, day out. She seemed to sleep in the day and wail at night. It was infuriating.

"Daddy?"

"Yeah?"

"Are they nice?" she asked.

"Yeah." Peeta seemed to go silent after that, his blue eyes going misty. His mouth twitched into a smile. He ruffled her hair and tweaked her nose. "We're here."

A few minutes later.

The house was large and made of sea stone, a woman was waving madly from the porch.

"Katniss! Peeta! Come quickly! You must meet all of my children!" She cried.

"That's Annie." Peeta said. He grabbed his family and marched to the house.

When everyone was seated in the living room, Finnick came in with his children. He whispered something in their ears. When he nodded, the first seven stepped forward.

"Aquata."

"Andrina."

"Arista."

"Atina."

"Adella."

"Alanna."

The smallest of the girls stepped forward, twining her red hair on her finger.

"Ariel." She said.

Finnick nodded, and they went to sit on a large couch shaped like a shell.

a boy who looked just like his father came forward.

"Triton!" he said.

"Flounder!" said a tiny boy with blond hair streaked with blue.

"And then there are my other children." Finnick said.

"What are their names?" Katniss asked.


	2. Flotsam and Jetsam

"Flotsam and Jetsam," Finnick said. "They only listen to their sister, Ursula. Trust me. You don't want to meet them."

Katniss yelped. She was looking off to the side, where, from the corner stared two glowing eyes.

"All right boys. It's over. Come and introduce yourselves!"

Two boys walked out of the corner. They were quite obviously identical twins. They each had a murky, dark green eye, and a glowing, brilliant green eye. _Like a lightning struck forest just before everything bursts into flame._ They had green hair, that would be blond without the color in it. Their faces were strange... eel-like. Creepy. The one on the right smiled.

"I'm Flotsam," he purred.

"Jetsam," his brother hissed.

Laurel looked up dazedly. "Is your hair dyed?" she asked.

"No," Flotsam said.

"Our eyes are natural as well." Jetsam reached out a hand to her. Tentatively, Laurel shook it. Flotsam came up from behind and pushed her, just as his brother pulled her arm. With a cry of shock, Laurel tumbled to the ground, where there was now a container of water.

"What... gentlemen," Katniss said.

A girl stepped out of the shadows. Her blond hair was wild, and her face was pale. She was beautiful in a terrible way. Her eyes too dark, her lips too blood-red, face too pale. Her brothers were the same. Handsome in a terrible way, with the glowing eye, the dark, blood-red lips, pale faces, making their dull eye look too dark, and their glowing one look too bright and flashing.

"Very good, boys. Very good," Ursula said. She swept over, her long black skirt trailing on the floor behind her. She tucked a long finger beneath Laurel's chin, tilting her face up to inspect. She removed her finger, and began to stroke her shell necklace.

"Ursula! Boys! Go to your rooms!" Finnick roared.

"Can we go to Ursula's?"

"All of us..."

"NO!" Finnick shouted.

"Come with me, boys." Ursula said.

"Yes, Your Wretchedness," the boys said in unison. They went to her side, their every movement eel-like, even the way they offered that their older sister pet their heads.

"Are they her pets?" Peeta asked.

"In a terrible way, yes. They'd follow her to the end of the earth if she asked them to," Finnick said.

"Oh," Laurel said, watching the three children walk through the door to Ursula's room.


	3. Trouble Resumes

Laurel heard them talking through the wall.  
"Yessssss…."

"Teach that goody two-shoes to mess with usss…"

"Boys, I want you to flood…" Laurel could not make out the rest, and it was only then that she realized they'd known all along that she heard them. _What if they're trying to make me miserable? Do they want me to go mad? Like them..._. Lost in thought, she barley noticed the redheaded girl sit next to her.

"They want you to be mad." She handed Laurel a towel.

Laurel thought this one over, as the girl got up, and took her seat with her sisters, instantly starting to argue with her older brother.

"... you don't understand me!" she cried, exasperated, "All I want is to have one chance to see the world outside district four! I want a chance to discover! Explore!"

She laughed. All of a sudden, Annie screamed.

"BOYS! URSULA! DINNER!"

They came out of their sister's room, obediently giving their mother a hug and kiss. Ursula followed them and took her place between her brothers at the table. The rest of the family sat down only moments later.

"Eeeeeeeew..." Flotsam muttered as his mother put a plate of pasta in front of him. "What... is... this... garbage?" He choked as his mother shoved some in his mouth and clamped her hand down to keep him from spitting it out.

"Eat. NOW!" she ordered him sternly.

Flotsam and Jetsam rolled their eyes and got up, returning 20 minutes later with a plate of cooked fish and seaweed. His mother scowled as he dumped it on his and his siblings pasta. Catching his mother's eye, he grinned malevolently.

"I'm sorry..." he purred, "I never meant to offend..." He smiled, showing slightly pointed, but otherwise normal looking, white teeth. Laurel resisted the urge to cover her eyes as if they hurt her to look at. Ursula, seeing her hand twitch on her lap said.

"I know, my dear. They are rather blinding, those two. Aren't they?" she laughed, a deep, echoing sound Laurel knew would haunt her dreams for the rest of her days. Jetsam's head shot to the left, and his hand came up, just as Triton aimed a punch at his ear.

"Sssssssss!" he hissed indignantly. Ursula stroked his silky hair for a moment, murmuring soothingly.

"My sweets! Are we going to let him get to us? We must wait."

Jetsam nodded, murmuring an apology to 'Her Wretchedness'. Dinner picked up until Flounder started to cry, hi big blue eyes filling with tears that spilled over onto his cheeks.

"Mummy! I don't feel well. My head hurts, and I'm sleepy..." He fell off his chair, sound asleep.

"Never could stay awake past 8:30," Finnick muttered, "Ah, Triton! Could you carry him to bed?"

"Come here you little monster!" Triton teased, picking Flounder up and carrying him up the stairs.

No sooner had he done that, then a stream of water burst into the room, and the high pitched laughter of Flotsam, and the soft, slightly mocking laugh of Jetsam filled the air.


	4. The World Will Kill You

"Katniss!" Peeta's voice called out. "I want you to get anyone who can't swim up the stairs _now_!"

Laurel could just see her mother nod through the water and make her way towards her. She stretched out her small arms, desperately trying to get to her mother. After what felt like forever, she was safe, held tightly in her mother's arms. Around her, everyone else seemed to be doing a fine job. The girls had removed their long dresses and were wearing the waterproof under-layers. Finnick and Annie were hurrying to see if anyone had been hurt. Amazingly, Flotsam, Jetsam and Ursula were nowhere to be found. It was as if they had vanished.

"Their rooms are apart from all this!" Finnick yelled. "Don't worry about them! Just get to that plug!" He pointed to something sticking out of the wall. As he did, Ariel, her beautiful hair floating behind her, moved gracefully to it and pulled as hard as she could. It didn't budge. Gasping, she came up to the surface and tried again. Inch by inch, she tugged it from the wall and the water began to spill out. Then she moved on to the next one, repeating until the water was no more than two feet. Then she sat tiredly on the soaking floor and rested her head on her hands.

Again, the air was filled with horrible laughter. Laurel couldn't help but ask,

"Why do they listen to her?"

Finnick sighed. "Because she's all they have."

"What?"

"We found them when they were very small… left to die for their funny looks, I would guess. It's a sick world out there still. Well, Annie couldn't bear to leave them and neither could I. Ursula was, well, older than them. She was about five, I would say. They were just babies. She had been caring for them, and they look to her as their savior. No matter what we did, they were left hurt and broken, and their minds are shattered. They hate the world and everyone in it because _they_ feel hated."

The air rushed from Laurel's lungs. "Oh. But why care for each other then?"

This time, it was Annie who answered. "Because they don't think they belong. They don't feel fully _human_. A-and they could be right. We don't know where they came from… It could easily have been the Capitol."

Katniss hurried down the stairs, dragging Laurel with her. "You mean they're _mutations_?"

"No, Katniss, they're children!" scolded Peeta. "And they deserve the benefit of the doubt."

Never before had Laurel seen her mother so angry. "They could have killed us all!"

"But they DIDN'T!"

Laurel watched silently as her mother sighed in defeat and sank to the floor. She wondered fleetingly if something horrible was wrong. Were she and daddy going to break up? Laurel also contemplated that she didn't want them to break up. That would mean that she and her sister (who was staying with her auntie and grandmother) would be left all alone with their mother. Though Katniss was wonderful, Laurel didn't want to spend her life without her daddy Peeta to bake her cookies and kiss her goodnight.

"I'm sorry," said a soft voice. She looked up and saw Flotsam. He was standing in front of his father, eyes lowered. "I didn't realize that we were such a trouble." He didn't sound entirely sincere, Laurel thought. Finnick sighed tiredly.

"You just flooded the house, Flotsam," he said. "But you are still _not_ a burden."

Flotsam scowled, looking aside. His jaw was set angrily. Jetsam stood nearby, looking worriedly from his brother to his sister with wide eyes. Ursula frowned, looking like she wanted to say something.

"Oh, but I am," Flotsam murmured, his voice like warm, sweet, enticing honey. Laurel shivered. She didn't like it. Not honey, of course. She _loved_ honey. But his voice was different. It was creepy…

"Stop," she whispered, putting her small hands over her ears. No one heard her. Instead, they all kept arguing like it was the last thing they could do on Earth. Like… there was no other choice.

"I think I _am_ a burden!" Flotsam insisted, the honey quickly turning into venom. His brother and sister watched grimly. "I think you never wanted to take us in, but _mother_ insisted. I don't care what you say! I think you would just as easily have left us there, and you wish you did now!"

Finnick's face turned red with anger. "Well you may very well be right! You're trouble, and you three know it. You more than any of them know it. Maybe I wouldn't have felt any different leaving you, but I can't imagine what my life would have been like if I hadn't! You may be trouble, you three, but you're still my children! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?"

Flotsam's face paled and he shrank back. His eyes glistened with… tears? Laurel blinked, but they were still there. Was Flotsam _crying?_ Yes. He was, she realized with a start.

"I understand," Flotsam whispered, almost inaudibly. "But you don't."

"Then help me understand," Finnick reasoned. "If you don't tell me what's wrong, I can't help you."

"You'd never understand," said Flotsam. "You have to _be_ me to understand me."

At that, Ursula cut in. "Flotsam…" Her voice was a low warning.

"What?" he snapped. "Am I not allowed to talk about myself? Am I not allowed to have a mind of my own? Am I not my own person?"

Ursula shook her head dazedly. "No," she whispered, her voice barely audible through the thick, static silence. "Because the world will kill you if you do."


End file.
